Search Results: Euphemisms

Name: Lynn
Gender: Female
Age: 19
Location: Eugene, OR
I have a friend who is driving me (us) crazy. She is my age and we’ve been best friends since grade school. Last year I came out to her as a lesbian and she was very supportive and loving. This year it’s her turn. She cut her hair really short and now only wears men’s clothes. Thing is, she’s not gay, or lesbian. In fact, she doesn’t have a boyfriend or a girlfriend. As far as I know she’s still a virgin. She told me that she’s gender queer. I was like, OK cool. Then she changed her name and wanted all her friends to call her by her new gender-neutral name. I was like, OK cool. Now she wants us to use gender-neutral pronouns—they, their, and them when referring to “her.” This just sounds dumb. I want to be loving and supportive of her, like she was for me, but I don’t understand what’s going on. It’s like this whole thing is an act, like she is trying to see how much attention she can get. A lot of our friends have just given up on her, but I don’t want to do that. At the same time it’s like she’s mocking our trans friends who have real gender concerns. Am I being a dick for not wanting to go along with this?

Curious word choice there, young lesbian Lynn. Are you being a dick? Hell, I don’t know. What I can say for certain is, if we were being totally politically correct, we wouldn’t use euphemisms for our genitals in a derogatory way, right? Luckily, I’m not the least bit PC as you will discover from my comments below.

The question you raise in your email is a thorny one and I’m not sure I know how to respond. Gender is the new hot button issue and it is rapidly becoming the litmus test for PC crowd. As you suggest, it sometimes looks as though some folks are just trying to get attention or see how much the traffic will bear.

I’m going to be pretty self-referential in my response because I feel like I’ve been here before. Let me explain.

When I was about your age and into my early 20’s the modern gay lib movement here in the US was just finding its footing. Stonewall had just happened and those of us on the sexual fringe were tying to come up with a new vocabulary with which to talk about ourselves. No one I knew liked the term homosexual for obvious reasons. Some of us, myself included, preferred the term, homophile. The difference being one was about loving, the other was about sex. That term didn’t catch on, but “gay” sure did. I was fine with that, even though it wasn’t my first choice. As I began to take a closer look at my sexual orientation and identity, I became a bit more radical; gay just didn’t cut it anymore. I began to embrace the term “queer.”

When I was a boy, the term queer, often directed at me because I wasn’t like the other boys, was hate-filled and hurtful. It stung and I was ashamed. By my mid 20’s, however, I was no longer ashamed. In fact, I was full of a new found fervor that was connected to my new found identity as a sexual outlaw. I know for certain that my radicalness was a little off-putting to some people, even people who wanted to love and support me.

After I passed through my militancy stage, I continued to use the term queer to describe myself as a way of showing the world that I had reclaimed and detoxified the word that once brought me shame. It became my own personal badge of honor. Maybe you’ve had a similar ark in your coming out, Lynn.

The curious thing is I’ve lived long enough to see the term I fought so hard to reclaim morph yet again. Nowadays, when someone self-identifies as queer, more often than not, it has to do with gender; it no longer has a strong sexual connotation. I feel a little bummed about this because one of my favorite words has been coopted by another group of people. But that’s the nature of language, right?

Over the decades since I first began to struggle with who I was and how I would talk about myself to others, I’ve seen numerous fracturing of the solidarity we sexual outlaws might have had. There was a virulent strain of lesbian separatism that cropped up in the mid 70’s. But most of that has dissipated since. And there was the radicalism that came with HIV/AIDS, which turned quiet, unassuming, cocktail sipping homos into fearless street fighters. That too has played itself out. In fact, now that marriage equality is all the rage, some of us old queers are asking if it’s still possible to be a sexual outlaw by just being gay. I fear not. Apparently, gender benders are the new sexual outlaws. OK, my time has past; I get it. I have no hard feelings, but I do have a wistfulness for days gone by.

It’s also been my experience that some of us, and I include my younger self in this category, have an uncanny ability to alienate loads of people with our politics. That can be a good thing, but radicalism can, and often does, alienate those who would naturally be our allies as well as some of those who struggle next to us. There’s nothing more devastating to a popular movement than having a bunch of edgier-than-thou folks setting themselves up as the thought police. When this happens, as it always does, it suggests to me that we are more interested in making a point than making a connection. This is a particularly acute problem for the newly liberated crowd, often found on college campuses. They are flush with indignation as they discover that life is not fair. They tend to use the scattergun approach when doling out their fury regardless if those around them are deserved of their wrath or not.

The current incarnation of the gender liberation movement suffers from a lot of the excesses that other liberation movements have experienced before it—intolerance and dogmatism among them. The thing is, gender-fuck has a long history and an honored place in sexual politics. However, in the past, this has mostly expressed itself in street theater. Nowadays, there is precious little humor among the new gender warriors, and very few of these zealots can laugh at themselves. That tells me we’re all in for a very rough ride ahead.

I know how important a shift in vocabulary is to making the dominant culture see its oppression, but the pronoun thing is just awkward. For one thing, there’s no agreement on what pronouns to use for those who are rallying for gender neutrality. Some people militate for they, their, and them. Others want the even more extreme “ze,” pronounced as the letter zee. And “hir,” pronounced here. As in, “Ze went to the store and bought hirself an ice cream cone.” Well, if you wanna do that to the language go right ahead, but I refuse!

Besides, are we just supposed to use these twisted pronouns when the gender warrior is in our company, or are we to alter our vocabulary even when they aren’t around? Try using they, their, and them when referring to someone who isn’t present. Confusion will reign.

Lynn, I don’t know your friend so I can hardly make a call on whether your friend is being authentic, disingenuous, or histrionic. But I don’t think you should beat yourself up if you draw the line at a pronoun shift. If your friend takes offense, as well your friend might, you could always compromise and use no pronouns ever in relation to your friend. Simply use your friend’s chosen name each time a pronoun might serve you better. In time, this will surely get exhausting for both you and your friend. But maybe this exercise will help your friend see that you are not the enemy and maybe your friend will then cut you a little slack.

The incomparable Matthew Stillman is back with us today for Part 2 of his appearance on this The Erotic Mind show. As you probably recall from last week, Matthew is the author of Genesis Deflowered, in which he reworked the first book of the bible by adding all the missing sex scenes and he did so while keeping his addition faithful to the literary style of the King James Version.

This week I hope to prevail upon Matthew to read from his work. Of course, we’re all goin’ to hell for even contemplatin’ this blasphemy. But what the heck, we already know we’re headed in that direction anyway, huh?

But wait, you didn’t miss Part 1 of our chat, did you? Well not to worry if ya did, because you can find it and all my podcasts in the Podcast Archive right here on my site. All ya gotta do is use the search function in the header; type in Podcast #395 and PRESTO! But don’t forget the #sign when you do your search.

Hey everybody, Happy Valentine’s Day! And guess what? This week’s show also marks my sixth anniversary of podcasting. I know! Isn’t that fuckin’ great? I mean who would have guessed that we’d have such a long run.

And what a year it has been too. I brought you fascinating interviews with remarkable people for all of my series. The Play With It series, which features conversations with folks in the adult products industry. The Sex EDGE-U-cation series, which features chats with kinksters and porn stars and advocates of alternative lifestyles. The SEX WISDOM series, which brings you interviews with the movers and shakers n the field of human sexuality. And, of course, The Erotic Mind series, which is now five years old.

But today, on account of it bein’ my freakin’ anniversary we’re gonna us a whole bunch of fun stuff together. I have a question from a lovely young woman, Abby, that stimulates a remembrance. Then I’m it up by three women, Trisha, Gwen and Lucy for some Valentine’s Day menu suggestions and finally I report on the euphemisms my friends and I have come up with for our naughty bits. You’re gonna love it! So let’s launch ourselves into year #7 with a bang, shall we?

It’s Product Review Friday. And we have another toy for your bum (or G-spot as the case may be) to tell you about. It came to us directly from the manufacturer, Nexus. This is the fifth product we’ve reviewed of theirs.

You have been following all our Nexus reviews, right? If not, you’re missing out. You can find them all HERE!

Brad
Damn, it’s almost been a year since I posted my last review. I had to take a break from reviewing, because I guess I was getting burnt out. The toys offered to me didn’t spark any enthusiasm, so I simply declined the offers. I didn’t want to try to review something that didn’t at least pique my interest.

At any rate, when Dr Dick offered me the Nexus Revo to review I jumped on the opportunity. I’m a straight guy who really gets off on ass play. I make a point of saying I’m straight, because so many people assume if a guy is into his butt hole, he’s gotta be gay. Nonsense! Happily, the days of making that uninformed leap are over. More and more straight guys are discovering their prostate and living to tell the story.

Nexus is one of the companies that is making prostate massage a household word. I’ve turned a number of my clients, I’m a personal trainer, on to their very interesting line of massagers and stimulators.

The Nexus Revo is supposed to represent a REVOlution in prostate massage. And in a way it is, at least it was for me. I am very familiar with the vibrating massagers and the plugs that act as stimulators, but the Nexus Revo is different from all the others. The tip of the insertable end rotates. Very cool! There is also a vibrator in the end that stimulates the perineum too. The small nubs on this part of the toy are soft and pliable. While that’s not a new phenomenon, it is noteworthy.

Nexus is fond of calling the prostate the male G-spot, which makes me squirm. I hate P-spot too. Do we really need these euphemisms? Let’s put our big boy pants on and call it by its name — prostate. Maybe then the guys who don’t know where theirs is, or the pleasure it can deliver, will be prompted to look for it.

The Nexus Revo is the right size for newbies and advanced users alike, anyone can enjoy this toy. Hey, even women wanting to explore their G-spot will get off on this. The business parts of this insertable are made of 100% hypoallergenic, latex free, nonporous and phthalates free silicone. The other parts, the base, where the controller is and battery compartment, are made of plastic. And because this thing is silicone, you can only use a water-based lube with it. And all ass play requires lots of lube

The bumps and ridges of the Nexus Revo make for easy insertion. For all you butt hole novices out there, just insert one bump and ridge at a time. No need to try and insert it all at once. But once fully inserted your ass sphincter will close down on the final notch holding the toy in place. So it sort of acts like a butt plug, for the most part. This makes the Nexus Revo a hands-free stimulator, which I really like. Because I like to tug on my nuts and stroke my cock when my prostate is being pleasured. I liked using it best while lying down on my back or side. The base is pretty bulky, so sitting on it is uncomfortable.

The dual motors are strong and quiet. There’s a single button controller. A single push of that button starts the rotation, a second push gives you a pulse vibe pattern and a third push escalates the pattern and a final push of the button turns the thing off.

I liked the very unique and stylish packaging. Everything, except the little foam cushion at the bottom of the package is made of recyclable paper products. Thank you for being so conscientious, Nexus. There’s even a little black satin drawstring storage pouch included in the box. Very thoughtful.

So far so good.

Now my gripes.

The Nexus Revo is not waterproof. What where they thinking? Nexus could have easily gone the extra mine and made the battery compartment waterproof, but they didn’t. I simply don’t get that. This is a toy for your asshole, people! Those of us who love our holes want our insertable toys to be sanatizable. This one is decidedly not. I also like using my prostate toys in the shower and bath. There’s no way I can do that with this thing. Disappointed!

I also thought the battery compartment was poorly designed. I mean, not only is it not watertight, but it’s made of cheap plastic that I had to struggle with to close properly.

And why is there a battery compartment to begin with? This thing should be rechargeable. I mean battery-powered toys are so last decade. All you have to do is look around at the competition. There are GREEN companies out there that are producing 100% seamless silicone G-spot and P-spot toys that are completely waterproof and rechargeable and they are less expensive too.

What’s up with the one rotational speed option? I wanted to be able to kick it up at least one notch to get myself off when I was close. With the Nexus Revo I get close but there is just not enough stimulation to push me over the edge, if you know what I mean.

Hey Nexus, how can you ask your customers to shell out two hundred bucks for a battery-operated toy, with limited speed and vibration options that is not waterproof? Again, what are you thinking?Full Review HERE!

Christwire’s Bryan Blake would like to share some Christian friendly synonyms for “penis” so you don’t go around sounding like a filthy liberal. His list contains euphemisms such as “DNA Rifle,” “Danish Dizzy Eye” and “Puking Flesh Weasel.” Wow. Ya gotta love them wacky Christians!